General Fight Club

Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
If you want to stabilize, you could do worse than



Which I like better than all these options. It has evasion like Carnifex Demon, but starts out a bit bigger, and if they kill it you at least get a bit of life out of it. Also, saccing it and reanimating it, then saccing it again is sweet.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I would just go skeletal vampire, but you should probably not do that for power level reasons.

If you want a reanimation target, you'll want something killable, but with an etb. Reanimation is not fun when you jump through hoops to reanimate something that just dies to removal, or the threat is too hard to interact with and just wins the game. A meaningful etb is the easiest compromise, and as a result I dont really like any of those targets.

I can't think of any other black creatures off hand I like, though maybe massacre wurm? The triple black makes it less likely to be poached by ramp decks, it might be easier to reanimate than cast, and the etb is powerful.

Though honestly I think shriekmaw and bone shredder are some of the best reanimation targets.
 
B

blacksmithy

I love Kokusho but, uh, i don't wanna buy her. Also, though this is not a real concern and more of a footnote, she is quite similar to Gray Merchant, who i will always find a reason to run in every cube.
Grillo, you make a good point about Shriekmaw and co. being good targets. My cube will tend towards more of that "value reanimator" style, and i can definitely see stuff like Merch, Maw, and that new demon-priest duder getting reanimated more often than whichever six-drop i pick. My cubers love the "mike-n-trike" combo for some reason, so he might get the nod just for that.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
That demon priest looks really good. It also works well with the lifegain and blink mechanics you want to run, and seems to strike the right balance between power and balance for a reanimation target.

What is mike and trike? I love triskelion, but never really have the right reanimation package to run it.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Massacre Wurm is awesome as well. Only reason I cut that is because I went ballistics on the three-color support, and {B}{B}{B} is not really what I was looking for in that environment.

Not wanting to buy a card is understandable, no worries :)



This one is secretly nice as well, especially if you run token strategies. It comes out a turn earlier and has a huge butt.
 
B

blacksmithy

Onderzeeboot said:

This one is secretly nice as well, especially if you run token strategies. It comes out a turn earlier and has a huge butt.
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Don't worry, I'm running Doomwake too. My 5 section is much more flexible than my 6 section, where I literally only have 1 creature slot. I'm doing all I can to crush and stomp and smash down my new cube list's curve, and black is already clogged enough from 3-5cmc.

Massacre Wurm is another case of "I'd run it if I already had it."
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

blacksmithy said:
Don't worry, I'm running Doomwake too. My 5 section is much more flexible than my 6 section, where I literally only have 1 creature slot. I'm doing all I can to crush and stomp and smash down my new cube list's curve, and black is already clogged enough from 3-5cmc.

Massacre Wurm is another case of "I'd run it if I already had it."
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Would you like to give us a list of black six drops you own so we can choose one of them for you? :p

On topic, if you're thinking of re animation, why not consider a seven instead?



I like soul of innistrad and twisted abomination for different reasons that you're looking for and probably lower power.
 
B

blacksmithy

Diakonov said:
I read this in the "I like turtles" voice.
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Good, good.
Time for an equipment fight!


This fight's not to the death like my Black finisher fight. Let's just compare and contrast some of the "I can't believe you're not running Jitte" equipment, with Morningstar as a base for comparison. I like the Armory because you can spread it around once your dude gets big enough, and proliferate! The Helm's equip cost is nice, and I run 21 legends that would appreciate hexproof.
 
Diakonov

Diakonov

I'd be wary of Champion's Helm giving hexproof. I'm not anti-hexproof, but I'm very selective about where it feels fair.

I'd probably pick Morningstar. Armory is SO slow.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Maybe we want to open this up to "Equipment that isn't Jitte/Swords/Batterskull that doesn't suck"

Here, I'll start:


End of list?

FWIW I'm not sure any of the cards you've listed are ones I'd play
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I actually cut Grafted Wargear for being too strong. I just read an mtgs cube thread about equipment, and when the power max dudes are saying it is situationally better than half of the Swords of X and Y, you know you have an insane piece of equipment on your hands.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
So, the reason I told you that you might have some trouble with your equipment theme, is what you are seeing here: the vast majority of equipment is terrible. Stoneforge mystic is not a great card: batterskull, jitte, and swords of X and Y are great cards, and stoneforge is great at finding them. Once you strip those away, this is what you are left with for best generic equipment options:



Maybe loxodon warhammer and behemoth sledge. Everything else is very niche. The equipment that I've ran that I've enjoyed over here has been:



Piston sledge is a great card if you are running an artifact theme with sac. targets and metalcraft creatures (note there are only a handful of cubeable metalcraft cards). Trepanation blade is not a good card, however it is a very entertaining card. Bonehoard is very strong, but wants a slower enviornment.

I also think these cards are solid role players, though nothing really strong.




Husk is good anti-edict tech, adds to artifact count, and can grow creatures just enough to outsize an opposing creature or move it out of burn range. Mortarpod is a nice pinger and sac. outlet.

This card has also been on my radar for a while, though its never made it into a cube.



You probably are best off just picking whatever niche equipment fits your cube's design the most.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Sword of the Animist? o.O

Sigil of Distinction is interesting. I don't love that it's so soft to removal (I think we've learned from cards like Magmaquake that the difference between CCX and CX is huge, so removing 2 charge counters makes the equipment quite a lot worse) but hey, I have proliferate cards. Might be worth a shot
 
B

blacksmithy

I'm actually running a lot of these suggestions already. The two i put up are, indeed, super fringe. I think Armory is the one i'm gonna try, because ive got the counters thing going on, but i doubt itll last long.
 
T

Tanner K.

- You absolutely have to have the right environment, but this card can be pretty fun. It's a long ways away from a normal piece of equipment (it's really more of a finisher in a control deck that has some smaller, evasive bodies or token generators), but it's still got some play to it.
 
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